Built-in interpolation functions

djrrb

I’m curious if you think there is value in adding interpolation functions to DrawBot, similar to lerp(), norm(), and map() in Processing/p5.js.

I understand it’s not good to bloat the initial state, and perhaps this is better handled by an external package. (Or maybe there is already a built-in way to deal with this that I don’t know about?)

Interpolation plays such a big part in so many of my scripts and those I create with my students, and I have cut and pasted the code below into so many of my DrawBot scripts that I felt moved to write this post and ask.

In case you are interested, I am happy to contribute the code I use. It uses the same syntax as Processing, except that remap() is used to avoid conflict with the Python map() function.

Thank you, as always

# Released by DJR under the BSD license 
def lerp(start, stop, amt):
	"""
	Return the interpolation factor (between 0 and 1) of a VALUE between START and STOP.
	https://processing.org/reference/lerp_.html
	"""
	return float(amt-start) / float(stop-start)
	
def norm(value, start, stop):
	"""
	Interpolate using a value between 0 and 1
	See also: https://processing.org/reference/norm_.html
	"""
	return start + (stop-start) * value

def remap(value, start1, stop1, start2, stop2, withinBounds=False):
    """
    Re-maps a number from one range to another.
    """
    factor = lerp(start1, stop1, value)
    if withinBounds:
        if factor < 0: factor = 0
        if factor > 1: factor = 1
    return norm(factor, start2, stop2)

frederik

could you move this topic to a github issue?

thanks!

djrrb

@frederik done! https://github.com/typemytype/drawbot/issues/414